Toshiya Tsunoda | fr

Japanese composer Toshiya Tsunoda (1964) has introduced innovative concepts in the arts of "field recording" and of "collage". His field recordings consist in capturing the sound of inert matter, which sounds like a contradiction until one studies Physics and realizes that everything radiates vibrations. Each object has a "sound": it is just a matter of finding a way to render that sound so that it can be appreciated by the human ear. Tsunoda's music is thus one of minimal subsonic vibrations. It is also one of extremely conscientious cut-up: sonic events are pasted together in a carefully choreographed design. Finally, Tsunoda's music is also poetry, because, far from being a mere scientist collecting specimen, the artist carefully his creatures so to concentrate the lyrical power of the world we inhabit.
Thus Ful (Selektion, 1996), a collaboration with Minoru Sota, plays sounds collected from a room during a period of one hour; Extract from Field Recording Archive #2 - The Air Vibration Inside A Hollow (Hapna, 2000) extracts sounds from the interior of objects such as bottles; and Pieces Of Air (Lucky Kitchen, 2001) is, literally, recordings of air vibration. They all eskew sound processing in favor of a "realistic" reproduction of the original source of sound.

Extract From Field Recording Archive #1 (Hapna, 1999) is the most conventional of his field recordings, because it simply documents sounds of heavy machinery at the harbor.

Other "recordings" include Field Recording Archive #3 - Solid Vibration (Intransitive Recordings, 2001), O Respirar Da Paisagem (Sirr, 2003), another essay in microscopic field recording, half of the double-disc Tsunoda/ Civyiu Kkliu (Bremsstrahlung, 2003), Scenery of Decalcomania (Naturestrip, 2004), and Ridge Of Undulation (Hapna, 2006), but both the technique and the results tend to repeat themselves while revealing precious little about sounds, nature or the meaning of life. Basically, Tsunoda is toying with simple ideas in simple manners. .